Elements with Enid: Size

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Size describes the physical dimensions of line, form or space, including design components and overall composition. Size informs an artist’s choices about materials both aesthetically and practically. In floral art, size considerations include containers, botanicals and other materials. Like Enid’s handbags, the size of floral pieces also relates to important commercial factors, such as production cost, retail price, perceived value and customer satisfaction. Students studied Enid’s bags to trace her decisions about:

• Proportion: size relationship of one part of a design to another

• Scale: overall size of the design in relation to its setting or surroundings

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The Size Exhibit

A botanical study in proportion and scale inspired by Enid’s mastery of both evokes imagination and a feeling of fairy-tale childs-play similar to designs such as “owl + pussy cat.”

Floral Art students Rylee Johnson, a Nutrition major, and Carter Wood, Horticulture, present their piece, “Where Wildflowers Tower.”

Rylee Johnson explains how the piece explores the element of scale by transforming a quiet meadow into a surreal landscape of towering blooms and miniature travelers including owls and fairies hidden in the foliage.

Carter Wood discusses how she and Rylee tried to convey a sense of the wonder of nature similar to what Enid’s owls and other designs often evoke.

Floral artists Rylee Johnson and Carter Wood.

The exaggerated scale of the piece’s flowers and diminutive size of tiny figures invite viewers to imagine what it would feel like to wander through nature when everything around you grows far beyond human scale.

Ceramic fairy figurines hide among the blooms.

A wee hedgehog wanders the mossy landscape.

A “night owl” peers out from the floral forest.

Collins bags from the collection: two versions of “night owl” linen canvas totes from 1967 (back) and a 1967 “owl + pussy cat” box bag with a miniature version created by Diana Wieler and Janet Ellis of La Boutique, a project that made doll-sized versions of haute couture handbags and other fashions,